A few moments ago someone sent this song. Antony Hegarty's voice was very alien to me when I listened to his contribution on Björk's Volta. I resisted and though that he ruined Volta.

But when I listened to this song a few moments ago...such emotion. As the person that sent me the song gave the impression (underlined on our conversation), this song is special. It instantly connected with me, not in terms of love or loss, but in the field of my life and the disastrous phase I'm currently in.

Well Orgers...Listen to this song!

Ha! I concur.

This song means the world to me. First time I heard it was live and it just broke me.

Whenever I hear it, I still channel that emotion.

For further listening; try Antony & The Johnsons's I Am A Bird Now.



Antony and the Johnsons' second full-length recording, the haunting and affecting I Am a Bird Now, is a far more intimate affair than their debut. Antony's bluesy parlor room cadence is more upfront here, resulting in a listening experience that's both exhilarating and disquieting. "Hope There's Someone" is a somber opener, and its plea for companionship, augmented by a sparse piano/vocal arrangement that rises into the air by song's end in a swirl of multi-tracked harmonies, is ultimately uplifting. This formula is applied to much of the record and never ceases to elicit honest emotion from either Antony or his numerous guests. Rufus Wainwright takes the lead on "What Can I Do?," a languid meditation on death that conjures up images of rainy streets, lonely lampposts, and cigar smoke -- it's brief (under two minutes) but alluring like the cover of a Raymond Chandler novel. Boy George joins Antony for a duet on the soulful and empowering "You Are My Sister," Devendra Banhart lends his warbly tenor to the lush "Spiraling," and Lou Reed plays noodly guitar and recites an anonymous poem on the mischievous "Fistful of Love." It's a testament to Antony's skill as a writer and arranger that these guest appearances are completely devoid of pretense, and while each artist is reverent to the source material, it's still Antony's show, as the most powerful moments on I Am a Bird Now are his.

Handy wikipedia;



Career

Antony Hegarty is the leader of Antony and the Johnsons. He was born in Chichester, West Sussex, England in 1971 and moved to Amsterdam in 1977 for 18 months before settling in San José, California in 1981. As a teenager he was enthused by the British synth pop of the time — in particular emotive torch singers such as Marc Almond and Boy George. In 1990 he moved to Manhattan to complete a degree in Experimental Theatre at New York University and founded the performance collective Blacklips Performance Cult with creative partner Johanna Constantine.

Current members include:

* Julia Kent (previously of Rasputina) - first chair cello
* Todd Cohen - drummer
* Jeff Langston - bassist
* Joan Wasser - violin, voice, string arrangement
* Maxim Moston - violin, arrangement
* Rob Moose - guitar, violin

Their early live shows were often opened by Dr. Julia (Yasuda), an intersex person, who performs the welcome in Morse code.

One theme presented in the band's music is aspects of transgender life. Antony identifies as transgender. This is often expressed in songs such as "For Today I Am A Boy", in which a young boy dreams of growing up to be a woman.

British experimental musician David Tibet of Current 93 heard a demo and offered to release Antony's music through his Durtro label. The debut album, Antony and the Johnsons, was released in 1998. In 2001, Antony released a short follow-up EP, I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy, which, in addition to the title track, included a cover of a David Lynch/Angelo Badalamenti song and "Soft Black Stars", a cover of a Current 93 song.

Producer Hal Willner heard the EP and played it to Lou Reed, who immediately recruited him for his project The Raven. Now gaining more attention, Antony signed to US-based record label Secretly Canadian, and released another EP, The Lake, with Lou Reed guest-performing on one of the tracks. Secretly Canadian also re-released Antony's debut album in the United States to wider distribution in 2004.
Candy Darling on the cover of I Am a Bird Now
Candy Darling on the cover of I Am a Bird Now

Antony's second full-length album, 2005's I Am a Bird Now, gained rave reviews and significantly more mainstream attention, winning the Mercury Music Prize for the best album of 2005. Rival Mercury nominees, and favourites for the prize, the Kaiser Chiefs suggested that Antony got in on a technicality; despite the fact he was born in the United Kingdom he spent much of his time in the US - although they later apologised for the suggestion that he wasn't a deserving winner.

Antony made an appearance and performed Leonard Cohen's "If It Be Your Will" in the 2006 full-length documentary, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man.

Antony is mentioned by the press as being part of the New Weird America movement.

He also appeared as a prison inmate, performing an acoustic version of the song "The Rapture" in Steve Buscemi's movie Animal Factory. He also made an appearance in the Sebastian Lifshitz movie Wild Side performing the song "I Fell in Love with a Dead Boy".

Antony's unconventional voice evokes comparisons to singers like Aaron Neville and Nina Simone. He has many fans in the music industry, including Kate Bush, Björk, Philip Glass, Marc Almond, Devendra Banhart, Diamanda Galás, Kembra Pfahler and Laurie Anderson ("Every emotion in the planet is in that gorgeous voice"), as well as Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright and Boy George, who are guest vocalists on I Am a Bird Now.

In November 2006 Antony and the Johnsons performed a successful European tour of 'Turning', a multimedia collaboration with video producer Charles Atlas, which focussed on themes of transformation and metamorphosis: [1].

He also sang back up on a song from Joan As Police Woman's 2006 debut album Real Life.

2006-07 Antony sang back up (with Sharon Jones and a children's choir) in Lou Reed's first full performance of his album Berlin. This was performed at St Ann's Warehouse in NYC in December 2006 and at The State Theatre in Sydney, Australia in January 2007.

Antony sings on "The Snow Abides", a mini-album by Michael Cashmore of Current 93. It comprises five songs, two of which are instrumental and three of which are sung by Antony. According to Björk's website, Antony is featured on two tracks ("Dull Flame of Desire" and "My Juvenile") on her new album Volta, which is scheduled for an early May release.

Antony and the Johnsons' third album is anticipated to be released in early 2008.
[Edited 4/27/07 20:21pm]

I Am Bird Now is a beautiful record, and im ashamed to say i only discovered it a couple of months ago. I can't wait to hear what he and Bjork have done together. Antony's voice has rightly been parralleled to Bjorks in that it is one of the most unique voices to emerge in the last decade. The depth of emotion he delivers is sublime, and it is only right that these two work together.

Fistful Of Love is one of my favourite recordings of the last few years. Does anyone know if Antony & The Johnsons got any Grammy nominations, because the vocal on that song beats anything I've heard in the last few years, and I find it incomprehensible that they could have been overlooked.

GangstaFam said:

Read what Laurie said?

I love Laurie.

The Lake =

my fav antony song is still Cripple & The Starfish

I'm becoming an Antony whore!

MikeMatronik said:

I am happy for you, mate. I love the fact you are open to new things. See you on MSN.

HamsterHuey said:

You are my musical sensei!

Ohmmmm

I made a three minute loop of the FutureSex/LoveSounds beat. Awfully nice to work out to.